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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, January 21, 2018
Persian shallot 'could help fight TB antibiotic resistance'
A type of shallot used in Iranian cooking could help "reverse the tide" of drug-resistant TB, researchers found
20 January 2018
A type of onion could help the fight against antibiotic resistance in cases of tuberculosis, a study has suggested.
Researchers believe the antibacterial properties extracted from the
Persian shallot could increase the effects of existing antibiotic
treatment.
They said this could help "reverse the tide" of drug-resistant TB, which infected 490,000 people in 2016.
But they said the research was still in its early stages and clinical trials would need to follow.
In the ongoing study, led by Birkbeck, University of London and
University College London, the research team conducted tests on four
different molecules from the shallots, which are a staple of Iranian
cooking.
They found all four showed a significant reduction in the presence of
the bacteria in the multidrug-resistant TB - the most promising
candidate of which inhibited growth of the isolated TB cells by more
than 99.9%.
The team concluded that the chemical compounds could be used alongside
existing antibiotics to combat strains of TB which have developed
resistance to anti-bacterial drugs.
The team concluded that the chemical compounds may work as templates for
the discovery of new drug treatment to combat strains of TB
Dr Sanjib Bhakta, one of the study's authors, from Birkbeck's department
of biological sciences, said: "Despite a concerted global effort to
prevent the spread of tuberculosis, approximately 10 million new cases
and two million deaths were reported in 2016.
"In searching for new anti-bacterials, we tend to focus on molecules
that are potent enough to be developed commercially as new drug entities
by themselves.
"However, in this study we show that by inhibiting the key intrinsic
resistance properties of the TB, one could increase the effects of
existing antibiotic treatment and reverse the tide of already existing
drug resistance."
Prof Simon Gibbons, another of the authors, and head of UCL's department
of pharmaceutical and biological chemistry, said: "Natural products
from plants and microbes have enormous potential as a source of new
antibiotics.
"Nature is an amazingly creative chemist and it is likely that plants
such as the Persian shallot produce these chemicals as a defence against
microbes in their environment."
In October, England's chief medical officer, Prof Dame Sally Davies,
urged global leaders to tackle the growing threat of antibiotic
resistance.
Medical experts say these drugs are being used too much, and that 25,000
people die across Europe each year because of drug-resistant
infections.
Researchers said they hope the molecules, which were tested in a
laboratory, could be combined with existing antibiotics to form new
anti-TB drugs.
The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.